The Vendor Balance Summary in QuickBooks Online

The Vendor Balance Summary lists each vendor with an open balance and the single net amount you owe them. It is the shortest way to see your accounts payable by vendor: one row per vendor, one balance, and a total at the bottom that equals what your business owes across all of them. The report is stated as of a date you choose, so it reflects the balances as they stood on that day.

What the Vendor Balance Summary shows

Each vendor with an open balance appears once, with the net amount you owe them as of the report date. That figure combines the bills you have entered and not yet paid, less any vendor credits or prepayments applied against them, so a vendor you have overpaid can show a balance in your favor. The report does not break the balance down by bill or by age; it is the top-line number per vendor. To see the open bills behind each balance, use the Unpaid Bills report, and to see the same totals sorted by how overdue they are, use the A/P Aging Summary.

The Vendor Balance Summary is a date-based report. It does not switch between cash and accrual basis the way the ledger and the statements do; what drives it is the set of open vendor transactions as of the date you run it.

Why a CPA or auditor asks for it

The total on this report should generally match the accounts payable line on an accrual-basis Balance Sheet for the same date, so an accountant uses it as a quick check that the payables balance is made up of real, identifiable vendor obligations. It gives a clean by-vendor view for reconciling against vendor statements, and it is a natural companion to the Expenses by Vendor Summary, which shows what you spent with each vendor over a period rather than what you still owe. In a sale or a financing review, it shows a buyer or lender who your outstanding creditors are at a glance.

How to run and export the Vendor Balance Summary in QuickBooks Online

1. Go to the Reports menu and type "Vendor Balance Summary" into the report search box, then open it.
2. Set the report date. Because it is stated as of one date, run it as of each fiscal year-end you want to keep, and as of your cancellation date for the final balances.
3. Run the report and confirm the total matches the accounts payable you expect for that date.
4. Use the export control at the top of the report to export it to Excel or PDF. The file downloads to your computer.
5. Repeat for any other as-of dates you need, such as each prior fiscal year-end.

Because the balances depend on the date, one run does not capture your whole history. Our guide to exporting all your data from QuickBooks covers how the payables reports fit with the rest of your records.

Keeping the Vendor Balance Summary after you cancel

You can include the Vendor Balance Summary in your Books Backup archive on request, and you can also export it yourself before you cancel. Either way, it is worth saving, because a cancelled paid QuickBooks Online company goes read-only for 12 months and is then permanently deleted, a trial only 90 days, and the IRS generally expects business records to be kept for at least three years, and longer in some cases. A record of what you owed each vendor on a given date is easy to preserve now and hard to reconstruct from QuickBooks once the company is deleted.

Frequently asked questions

How is the Vendor Balance Summary different from the A/P Aging Summary?

Both start from what you owe your vendors. The A/P Aging Summary splits each vendor's balance into columns by how overdue it is, while the Vendor Balance Summary shows only the single total per vendor. Use the aging report when you need to know how late the amounts are, and the balance summary when you just need the total per vendor.

Why does a vendor show a negative balance?

A negative or credit balance usually means you have a vendor credit or a prepayment on file that has not been applied to a bill yet, so the report shows the vendor owing you rather than the reverse. It is worth reviewing these before you cancel, and asking your bookkeeper or CPA how to handle any you cannot explain, because the detail behind them lives in the transactions that disappear when the company is deleted.

Does it show the individual bills I owe?

No. The Vendor Balance Summary stops at one total per vendor. For the bills that make up each balance, with due dates and open amounts, use the Unpaid Bills report, and keep it alongside this one so you have both the totals and the detail.